Behind the door
by RGoodfellow64
Summary: I know its been done before, but my muse stopped by for a visit and this is the result. What went on in Kate's mind behind the door in LA.


Behind the door

by RGoodfellow64

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Disclaimer: Although it has been a couple of months, and I had the opportunity to speak to Tamala before Christmas on CBR blog talk radio, nothing has changed. Still not mine.

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As she shut the door behind her, Kate leaned against it and shook her head. Her thoughts were wild, moving faster than she could comprehend.

'Oh God what am I doing?" she thought. 'I almost kissed him! I. Almost. Kissed. Castle.'

Still leaning against the door, she put her head in her hands and took a deep breath. She couldn't get her mind around the fact that not only did she almost kiss him, she _wanted_ to kiss him. For the first time since last May, just before he left for the summer, she felt herself about to let go and just dive in.

She couldn't be thinking about that with Castle, she just couldn't.

'Why not?' that nagging little voice in her head asked. The same voice that had been telling her for months that not only was he the one she should have dived in with last year, but he was still the one she needed.

Her hands crept up from her face and into her hair, pulling it from her face as she fought a battle with herself. A battle that she had been fighting since Castle first started following her.

There was something there, she knew it and so did he. They both felt it when they kissed outside the warehouse where Lockwood held Ryan and Esposito. She knew his exclamation was about their kiss and had nothing to do with how she knocked out the guard. She knew because she felt the same way. She had never been kissed like that before in her life. She never knew a kiss could be like that and since then…since then she'd been settling for much less.

Josh! The moment she thought about how much she was missing, he came to mind. Josh, who stayed behind for her. Josh, who stayed to make their relationship work. To make it stronger, and yet, ever since that night they've been drifting further apart.

Her hands left her hair and she held them at her lips, as if she was stopping herself from speaking, or calling out, or…or what? Kate wasn't sure but she knew that Josh wasn't the reason she walked away from Castle. There was no thought of him at all; it wasn't until now, when she was in her room behind her door that he even came to mind. No, Josh was no longer a reason to keep her away from Castle.

There was something else that forced her to run away, because that's exactly what she did. She ran away, and it was then that she realized, she'd been running away from Castle from the very beginning. She asked herself why and she had no answer.

_She had no answer! _

She gazed at the handle to her door and willed it to open. To force herself to make a decision, to face him and what he represented. To stop running.

But the handle never moved. She watched it and it never moved, but as she watched, she saw her hand move towards it. It hovered over the handle like a hummingbird, reaching towards it and then pulling back. Unsure whether to dip it's beak into the nectar. Nectar. Sweetness. Caring. Love.

Love.

Is that what she was running from? It felt like it. It felt so very much like she was running from something so much bigger than both of them. She was both frightened and exhilarated and watched as her hand continued to move back and forth, hesitant to touch the handle. Hesitant to move forwards in her life. Hesitant to…

Her hand grasped the handle and pushed it down, as her arm pushed the door open.

Open to see his door closing behind him.

As she watched his door slowly close, she thought that she should call out to him. To say something. Anything, just to stop the door from closing, but she didn't.

She couldn't.

She was so conflicted that she didn't know what to do, and a part of her, a very, very small part, was relieved when his door finally closed and the decision was made for her. That once again circumstances intervened and gave her the option of pretending that her feelings, and his feelings, didn't exist; or if they did exist, they didn't matter.

She was good at pretending. She was good at hiding, and she was good at putting things aside in the hope they would simply go away.

As she stood there looking at his closed door, that very small part of her satisfied, she couldn't help but realize that the feeling in her heart when she saw his door close, when she never said a word, was the same she felt when he walked away with Gina last May.

She turned back to enter her room, and wondered, not for the first time, how long she would continue to fight herself. How long would she be able to keep him away? How long would she be able to deny what she so desperately wanted?

She had Josh, he stayed for her, gave up his Doctors Without Borders, but Castle was the man with the words, and he was so, so right. She might have Josh, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and she knew it was just a matter of time until her heart won out over her mind.

She turned away, disappointment written on her face, licked her lips and walked back into her room. Closing the door behind her, she simply stood there, hand still on the handle, and let the realization flow over her that once again, something special, something potentially wonderful and passed her by.

As she lowered her head and let go of the handle she thought that it didn't so much pass her by as she purposely walked away from it. She walked into the room and started to get ready for bed, pushing away the thought, the wondering thought of how many times will she be given this opportunity, allowed this chance, before it's finally taken away from her for good.

Unwilling to face that thought, she buried it for another day. She had to avenge Royce first, and then she can tackle the other problem…or opportunity. Richard Castle.

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**AUTHORS NOTE: It's winter and my Muse evidently doesn't care for the cold and the snow of New England, which may explain why I haven't had any ideas come to mind for a story. For some reason (known only to herself) she decided to visit me today and this is the result. I have no idea where it came from as I haven't thought of the LA episode in a while, and I know it was written practically to death, but suddenly it was pushing to come out and here it is. Hope you like it.**


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